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Against US Intervention in Venezuela: Death to Yankee Imperialism

The Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement (RAM) lays out why anarchists and autonomous anti-capitalists should oppose the attempted US coup in Venezuela.

During the Chavista period, residents of Venezuela organized consumer cooperatives, communes and wide-ranging regional organization from working-class neighborhoods. As usual, the state power at the time — the Chavista government — attempted to create programs to meet people’s needs from the top down, resulting in a process replete with contradictions. Nevertheless, these communes and cooperatives worked tirelessly to create the necessary conditions for people to live autonomously. In 2013, these councils numbered over 31,000, and they are still active today; on February 10, 2019, for instance, members of the José Ramón Rodriguez, Cuna de Artesanos, and 1ro de Mayo communes in Guadalupe took over abandoned agricultural facilities at the Instituto de Desarrollo Rural (Institute of Rural Development).

The successes — and even the mere existence of — these efforts have been suppressed in the U.S. by the prevailing state narrative of depravation and helplessness, once again evoking white saviorism in an effort to justify U.S. imperialism. The prevailing narrative is that, under the leadership of Maduro, the people of Venezuela are starving and lack basic necessities, such as medical care and shelter. Such deprivation is in fact prevalent throughout the U.S. empire, including at its nexus, the continental United States. The notion, therefore, that the U.S. should interfere elsewhere on such grounds, and that such interference should benefit the people in any way, is outrageous. The U.S. continues to engage in its usual ideological struggle against communism, socialism, and, of course, anti-statehood; the hardships faced by the people of Venezuela serve as a convenient foil against which the state narrative attempts, unsuccessfully, to uphold the superiority of what it calls “democracy.”

It is worth noting that the humanitarian crisis currently being used as an excuse for U.S. interference in Venezuela was in fact manufactured by the U.S. — through the CIA and right-wing Venezuelan oligarchs — over the past twenty years. The groundwork for the current predicament has been laid carefully, with CIA operatives and Venezuelan elites conspiring against the Chavista government and having already attempted a coup in 2002. (Chavez was removed from office for roughly fourty-seven hours before being reinstated.)

Another essential pillar of this false narrative is that Guaidó, the “opposition leader”/U.S.-backed stooge, is a progressive hero with the best interests of his people at heart. This same “progressive hero” praised notorious fascist Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil as a leader with a known “commitment to democracy, human rights, security, and development of the region.” Bolsonaro is but one of many known far right leaders in Latin America supporting a Guaidóan coup who have recently dubbed themselves the Lima Group. Other members of the Lima Group include Colombian President Ivan Duque Marquez, the handpicked successor of Alvaro Uribe, the godfather of the Latin American far right; Juan Orlando Hernández, who is barely clinging to power in Honduras; and Mauricio Macri, the corrupt businessman in Argentina.

That the CIA has been funding Guaidó’s efforts has been well documented. We saw this in Chile in the 1960s and 70s. In 1964, Christian Democratic Party (PDC) leader Eduardo Frei gained an absolute majority. Frei’s ascension was a direct result of covert intervention by the CIA in the campaigning process. The CIA financed a significant portion of Frei’s campaign, and spread vast amounts of anti-communist propaganda. These actions included the distribution of 3,000 political posters, as well as the financing of radio spots and news commentaries that opposed Allende. Soon after, the U.S. government issued around $1.2 billion in grants and loans to Frei’s administration to “sustain social and economic development,” in an effort to safeguard Frei’s popularity amongst the people. In 1970, after it became apparent through polling results that Allende was expected to achieve electoral success, the United States began to formulate plans to depose him and install a leader with policies sympathetic to U.S. interests. This led to the eventual military coup against Allende and the rise of the infamous dictator, Augusto Pinochet.

RAM denounces any and all acts of U.S. imperialism and stands, unequivocally, in solidarity with the revolutionary movement in Venezuela, particularly our anarchist comrades formerly in the organization Manifiesto de La Federaction Anarquista Revolucionaria de Venezuela (FARV). We stand in solidarity with the destitute, the oppressed, those who have found dignity through the revolutionary process and who have organized within their own communities for decades, in an effort to gain autonomy from capitalism and the state.

It is the example set by these people that most offends and threatens the U.S. empire, and is the root cause of its desire to interfere in Venezuela— potentially even greater than its insatiable desire to control global oil reserves. RAM calls on all revolutionaries to take a stand against this latest incarnation of US barbarism in Latin America. The fascist creep has become an avalanche, and anarchists and all revolutionaries have a responsibility to combat fascism, imperialism, and capitalism, especially when these forces are emboldened and belligerent.

Oooooh yah! Let's join the fucking Irish Nazis up against the Evil British Empire that runs the world but yet is more precisely a proxy empire of the Jooz, amirite? I remember this is the site where you can be labelled "Anti-Deutsch" for talking about how Palestinian nationalism has been run by a bunch of national-islamist sacks of shit ever since Hitler's dawg Al-Husseini, and most likely earlier.

Good look in establishing "peoples communs" (or whatever PKK call em) in the North. In Belfast if your in a Catholic area if you are deemed "anti-social" or what the republicans like to use now is "anti-community" you can be sure to find yourself in hospital nursing gun shoot wounds to the knees or broken limbs after been bate with baseball bats. Iv heard of teenagers been put down manholes and car parked on top to prevent them getting out, Ifv heared of teenagers having limbs put in steal fence and having the limbs pulled and broke around the bars. And what would count as being "anti-community"? Little as smoking a joint. The IRA are much a problem as the Brits. They dont want liberation for people the IRA wants to be the police be the state.

I am in Ireland. The Republicans are dicks, they are worde than any Stalinists. All's they want is power it's same reason why they always fail, their greedy for power corrupts them, they sell out at ever opportunity.

It says something when American anarchists would rather fetishise and organise parades for everywhere else, but when it comes to here, its never the right time, or they need to build more or some other lame excuses

either that or they spend all their time parading around with democratic marches in the name of "Antifa" and "social-anarchy"

"In 1970, after it became apparent through polling results that Allende was expected to achieve electoral success, the United States began to formulate plans to depose him and install a leader with policies sympathetic to U.S. interests. This led to the eventual military coup against Allende and the rise of the infamous dictator, Augusto Pinochet."

Wrong. There was a third agency with boots on the ground already, that was entirely non-American, and had been active in supporting other neighboring fascist regimes like Peron. CIA was just overseeing things from a distance, and likely didn't had the assets to carry such a coup. Same for the assassination of El Che. Leftists got such a poor review of history, and this has been playing against them for so long. Latin socialists, like socialists in several other regions, rely on a worldview that is conductive to Neonazism, without being such. They seen the British-American influence as the sole global empire threatening the whole world, under the domination of "Zionists".

They refuse to be looking at the Euro fascist influence in their countries and how it shaped the Far Right over there, especially during the '60s-'70s period, but it's still around nowadays. Maduro backed some highly-problematic protests against Israel, where he called upon "the Jews that live in our lands" to "stop the massacre, and the murder of those innocent boys and girls." https://vanguardia.com.mx/madurocreeeselpueblojudioquienpuededetenermasa...

The knee-jerk critics to the original comment are not only pushing status quo positions, they have also forgotten one critical detail. The Soviet Bloc and Colonel Gaddafi no longer exist, so the Irish Republicans will never be able to get funding, arms or training like they did in the 1970's.
Somehow it's ok to support armed conflict against ISIS but it's inconceivable to battle against the Loyalists and Republicans.

01:29 here, what I meant in common terms you might understand, is that populism oscillates between 2 options in binary, or 2 party political systems. Think of black/white, male/female, left/right, capitalism/communism, etc, Have you taken this in hmm,,,,? Ok, now you know how media and the State transmits and spreads political policies, ethics and morals , along with religious belief systems, and some sacred icon or myth, or spook is being violated or destroyed, its supporters support or oppose one or the other binary members depending on which side they approve of, and propaganda forms and creates popular cultural actions to occur, movements to follow, depending on the "Overton Window" which is the most popularly accepted limits to approval. Or else it is taboo, or censored.
Do you understand now, you wont beam up, you are stuck here mmkay!?

The so-called revolution in Rojava proves that there's no need for the USSR nor for Gaddafi to get help for anti-imperialist work. It's true that the Bloc-world is over since the 90s -- now you get funded by both, Russia and the US at the same time!

It's difficult to argue with you for two reasons: a) the blackmail between getting out there and shutting "the sweet fuck up", as you say, is what in my young days people used to call a false alternative; b) there's no clear subject nor a verb in your phrase which renders it more or less meaningless.

But why! numerous are anti-authoritarians who support the Muslim Brotherhood, and it works damn well. In France, for example, it sufficed that they create a frontline organization to wage their tiny little battle against islamophobia, and they get to dine with the finest of anti-authoritarians in Paris!

Kidding apart, from the anti-authoritarians, as you say, I expect nothing but to follow their leaders, be it Ocalan or Maduro.